Explanation: Find the Big Dipper and
follow the handle away from the dipper's bowl
until you get to the last bright star.
Then, just slide your telescope a little south and west and
you'll
come upon this stunning pair of interacting galaxies,
the 51st entry
in Charles Messier's famous catalogue.
Perhaps the
original
spiral nebula, the large galaxy with
well defined spiral structure is also catalogued as NGC 5194.
Its spiral arms and dust lanes
clearly sweep in front of its companion galaxy (bottom),
NGC 5195.
The pair are about 31 million light-years distant and
officially lie within the angular boundaries of
the small constellation
Canes
Venatici.
Though M51 looks faint and fuzzy to the eye,
deep images like
this one can reveal striking colours and the faint
tidal
debris around the smaller galaxy